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Objective: Digital interventions such as remote monitoring of symptoms and physiological measurements have the potential to reduce the economic burden of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) but their cost‐effectiveness remains unclear. This systematic review of randomised controlled trials (RCT) aims to assess whether digital health interventions can be cost‐effective in these patients. Design: Systematic review of RCTs. Study quality was assessed using RoB2 tool. Data Sources: Systematic search in three databases: PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. Eligibility Criteria: Studies were eligible if they were RCTs with health economic evaluations assessing participants with asthma and/or COPD and comparing a digital health intervention to standard of care. Results: We included 35 RCTs, of which 21 were related to COPD, 13 to asthma and one to both diseases. Overall, studies assessed four categories of digital health interventions: (i) Electronic patient diaries (n = 4), (ii) real‐time monitoring (n = 19), (iii) teleconsultations (n = 6) and (iv) others (n = 6). Eleven studies performed a full economic evaluation analysis, while 24 studies performed a partial economic analysis. Most studies involving real‐time monitoring or teleconsultations presented economic results in favour of digital health interventions (indicating them to be cost‐effective or less expensive than the standard of care). Mixed results were obtained for electronic patient diaries. In the studies that conducted a full economic analysis, the incremental cost‐effectiveness ratio (ICER) ranged from 3530,93€/QALY and 286,369,28€/QALY. In the studies that conducted a partial economic analysis, the cost differences between the intervention group and the control group ranged from 0,12€ and 85,217,86€. Half studies with low risk of bias concluded that the intervention was economically favourable. Conclusion: Although costs varied based on intervention type, follow‐up period and country, most studies report digital health interventions to be affordable or associated with decreased costs. Trial Registration: PROSPERO: CRD42023439195 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An autonomous vehicle can sense its environment and operate without human involvement. Its adequate management in an intelligent transportation system could significantly reduce traffic congestion and overall travel time in a network. Adaptive traffic signal controller (ATSC) based on multi‐agent systems using state‐action‐reward‐state‐action (SARSA (λ$$ \lambda $$)) are well‐known state‐of‐the‐art models to manage autonomous vehicles within urban areas. However, this study found inefficient weights updating mechanisms of the conventional SARSA (λ$$ \lambda $$) models. Therefore, it proposes a Gaussian function to regulate the eligibility trace vector's decay mechanism effectively. On the other hand, an efficient understanding of the state of the traffic environment is crucial for an agent to take optimal actions. The conventional models feed the state values to the agents through the MinMax normalization technique, which sometimes shows less efficiency and robustness. So, this study suggests the MaxAbs scaled state values instead of MinMax to address the problem. Furthermore, the combination of the A‐star routing algorithm and proposed model demonstrated a good increase in performance relatively to the conventional SARSA (λ$$ \lambda $$)‐based routing algorithms. The proposed model and the baselines were implemented in a microscopic traffic simulation environment using the SUMO package over a complex real‐world‐like 21$$ 21 $$‐intersections network to evaluate their performance. The results showed a reduction of the vehicle's average total waiting time and total stops by a mean value of 59.9$$ 59.9 $$% and 17.55$$ 17.55 $$% compared to the considered baselines. Also, the A‐star combined with the proposed controller outperformed the conventional approaches by increasing the vehicle's average trip speed by 3.4$$ 3.4 $$%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Sensitive skin is characterized by self‐reported sensory perceptions in response to stimuli that should not provoke unpleasant sensations. Cosmetic products for sensitive skin are designed to minimize these symptoms. This study aimed to unveil the most used active ingredients for sensitive skin in facial care products from the pharmacy and parapharmacy channel. Methods: A pool of products from the pharmacy and parapharmacy channel whose label included the expressions 'sensitive skin', 'reactive skin' or 'intolerant skin' were analysed. The active ingredients were identified from product compositions and ranked in descending order of occurrence. The scientific evidence regarding the mechanism of action and efficacy of each ingredient was also compiled. Results: Eighty‐eight products from 19 multinational brands were included. Niacinamide leads the top, followed by Avena sativa, allantoin, glycyrrhetinic acid and derivatives and Laminaria ochroleuca. Ingredients that can reduce skin inflammation and act on the skin barrier were used in more than half of the products analysed. The clinical studies regarding the active ingredients used in these products remain sparse and lack methodological quality. Among the top ingredients, niacinamide, panthenol and acetyl dipeptide‐1 cetyl ester were the only ones studied on volunteers having sensitive skin, while acetyl dipeptide‐1 cetyl ester and palmitoyl tripeptide‐8 were designed to act on the molecular targets involved in this condition. Conclusion: This study reveals the most used active ingredients in cosmetic products for sensitive skin, as well as the scientific evidence supporting their efficacy and the mechanisms of action. This insight is meaningful for dermatologists and other health professionals to provide customized advice based on the symptomatology of individuals with sensitive skin, and for the formulation of cosmetic products and design of new active ingredients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radiomics is the quantitative analysis of standard‐of‑care medical imaging; the information obtained can be applied within clinical decision support systems to create diagnostic, prognostic, and/or predictive models. Radiomics analysis can be performed by extracting hand‐crafted radiomics features or via deep learning algorithms. Radiomics has evolved tremendously in the last decade, becoming a bridge between imaging and precision medicine. Radiomics exploits sophisticated image analysis tools coupled with statistical elaboration to extract the wealth of information hidden inside medical images, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), and/or Positron emission tomography (PET) scans, routinely performed in the everyday clinical practice. Many efforts have been devoted in recent years to the standardization and validation of radiomics approaches, to demonstrate their usefulness and robustness beyond any reasonable doubts. However, the booming of publications and commercial applications of radiomics approaches warrant caution and proper understanding of all the factors involved to avoid "scientific pollution" and overly enthusiastic claims by researchers and clinicians alike. For these reasons the present review aims to be a guidebook of sorts, describing the process of radiomics, its pitfalls, challenges, and opportunities, along with its ability to improve clinical decision‐making, from oncology and respiratory medicine to pharmacological and genotyping studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. The reasons for increased stroke burden in developing countries are inadequately controlled risk factors resulting from poor public awareness and inadequate infrastructure. Computed tomography and MRI are common neuroimaging modalities used to assess stroke with diffusion‐weighted MRI, in particular, being the recommended choice for acute stroke imaging. However, access to these imaging modalities is primarily restricted to major cities and high‐income groups. In the case of stroke, the time‐window of treatment to limit the damage is of a few hours and needs a point‐of‐care diagnosis. A low‐cost MR system typically achieved at the ultra‐low‐ and very‐low‐field would meet the need for a geographically accessible and portable solution. We review studies focused on accessible stroke imaging and recent developments in MR methodologies, including hardware, to image at low fields. We hypothesize that in the absence of a formal, rapid stroke triaging system, the value of timely on‐site delivery of the scanner to the stroke patient can be significant. To this end, we discuss multiple recent hardware and methods developments in the low‐field regime. Our review suggests a compelling need to explore further the trade‐offs between high signal, contrast, and accessibility at low fields in low‐income communities. Level of Evidence: 4 Technical Efficacy Stage: 6 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are essential in healthy diets and their production is extremely important. Natural sources of PUFAs includes animal and aquatic products such as marine fish oil, however there are several limitations such as the decrease of fish stocks throughout the world. Thus, microbial oils are a preferable source of PUFAs. Herein, it was studied the production of PUFAs by Mortierella alpina under solid‐state fermentation (SSF) using polyurethane foam as inert substrate and synthetic medium or lignocellulosic hydrolysate as source of C, N, and other nutrients. Several parameters of fermentation conditions were evaluated as carbon source, inductors addition, ratio C/N and temperature. The highest amount of total PUFAs per mass of solid (535.41 ± 24.12 mg/g), linoleic acid (129.66 ± 5.84 mg/g), and α‐linoleic acid (401.93 ± 18.10 mg/g) were produced when the culture medium contained 20 g/L glucose, 10% (w/v) linseed oil, the C/N ratio was adjusted to 25 and the incubation temperature was 25°C for 3 days decreasing to 16°C on the remaining 4 days of fermentation. In addition, a hemicellulosic hydrolysate can be used as low‐cost substrate to produce PUFAs, although the production was lower than the achieved with synthetic medium. SSF showed an interesting technology for microbial PUFAs production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several aspects of the Birnbaum-Saunders (BS) distribution that was reviewed by N. Balakrishnan and Debasis Kundu within the issue and the extreme value (EV) BS distribution. Topics include the reasons for using BS distribution in modeling data with heavy tails, the EVBS distribution developed by Ferreira and colleagues, and EVBS regression models.

The electroreactivity of amoxicillin (AMX) was studied on catalysts based on platinum, palladium and ruthenium supported on carbon nanotubes (Pt/CNT, Pd/CNT, Ru/CNT) in aqueous media using cyclic voltammetry. Cyclic voltammograms show two oxidation processes, the first one between 0.5 and 1.0 V vs. reference hydrogen electrode (RHE) and the second one between 1.2 and 1.6 V vs. RHE. The effects of electrocatalytic material and supporting electrolyte, on current intensities and oxidation potentials, were determined using experimental design strategy (DOE). Kinetic parameters of the oxidation reactions were calculated from the scan rate study. The constant potential electrolysis of AMX was carried out on Ru/CNT catalyst, in 0.1 M NaOH and AMX conversion reached 45 % after 6 h of electrolysis at 2.5 V vs. RHE. The percentages of CO32−, SO42− and NO3− among oxidation products were 26, 17 and 4 %, respectively. The primary degradation products of AMX determined by HPLC‐MS gave some insight about the reaction pathways. CNT‐supported catalysts: The electroreactivity of amoxicillin (AMX) was studied on catalysts based on Pt, Pd and Ru supported on carbon nanotubes (Pt/CNT, Pd/CNT, Ru/CNT) in aqueous media. The primary degradation products of AMX determined by HPLC‐MS gave some insight about the reaction pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) continue to cause environmental challenges as a result of their release into the environment by a great variety of anthropogenic activities and their accumulation in soils. Studies were conducted on the toxicological effect of the model PAH phenanthrene using the soil invertebrate model Enchytraeus crypticus at the individual, tissue, and molecular levels. Animals were exposed for 2 d and 21 d to phenanthrene concentrations corresponding to the (previously estimated) 3-wk effective concentration, 10% (EC10) and EC50 for effects on reproduction. Gene expression profiling did not reveal a typical phenanthrene-induced biotransformation signature, as it usually does in arthropods and vertebrates. Instead, after 2 d of exposure, only general metabolic processes were affected, such as translation and adenosine triphosphate synthesis-coupled electron transport. Histological sections of tissues of 2-d exposed animals showed no deviations from control. In contrast, after prolonged exposure of up to 21 d, histopathological effects were found: chloragogenous cells were highly vacuolated and hypertrophic. This was corroborated by differential expression of genes related to immune response and oxidative stress at the transcriptomic level. The data exemplify the complexity and species-specific features of PAH toxicity among soil invertebrate communities, which restricts read-across and extrapolation in the context of soil ecological risk assessment. Environ Toxicol Chem 2016;35:2713-2720. © 2016 SETAC [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The actual skin colorimeters analyse reflect values from a limited number of broad spectral bands and consequently present limited reproducibility and specificity when measuring skin colour. Here, Antera 3D®, a new device which uses reflectance mapping of seven different light wavelengths spanning the entire visible spectrum, has been compared with Mexameter® MX-18, an established narrow-band reflectance spectrophotometer and with Colorimeter® CL-400, an established tristimulus colorimetric instrument. Methods Thirty volunteers were exposed to a controlled ultra-violet B light. Measurements with Antera 3D®, Mexameter® MX-18 and Colorimeter® CL-400 were done before treatment and after 2, 7 and 14 days. Results Antera 3D® showed to have a better sensitivity and specificity than Mexameter® MX-18 regarding the melanin parameter. A similar sensitivity between Antera 3D® and Mexameter® MX-18 was found for erythema determination and also for the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage L*, a* and b* parameters between Antera 3D® and Colorimeter® CL-400. Good correlations were observed for all the parameters analysed. Repeatability of Mexameter® MX-18 and Colorimeter® CL-400 values were lower than that of Antera 3D® for all the parameters analysed. Conclusion Antera 3D®, such as Mexameter® MX-18 and Colorimeter® CL-400, are robust, sensitive and precise equipment for the skin colour analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The actual skin colorimeters analyse reflect values from a limited number of broad spectral bands and consequently present limited reproducibility and specificity when measuring skin colour. Here, Antera 3D®, a new device which uses reflectance mapping of seven different light wavelengths spanning the entire visible spectrum, has been compared with Mexameter® MX-18, an established narrow-band reflectance spectrophotometer and with Colorimeter® CL-400, an established tristimulus colorimetric instrument. Methods Thirty volunteers were exposed to a controlled ultra-violet B light. Measurements with Antera 3D®, Mexameter® MX-18 and Colorimeter® CL-400 were done before treatment and after 2, 7 and 14 days. Results Antera 3D® showed to have a better sensitivity and specificity than Mexameter® MX-18 regarding the melanin parameter. A similar sensitivity between Antera 3D® and Mexameter® MX-18 was found for erythema determination and also for the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage L*, a* and b* parameters between Antera 3D® and Colorimeter® CL-400. Good correlations were observed for all the parameters analysed. Repeatability of Mexameter® MX-18 and Colorimeter® CL-400 values were lower than that of Antera 3D® for all the parameters analysed. Conclusion Antera 3D®, such as Mexameter® MX-18 and Colorimeter® CL-400, are robust, sensitive and precise equipment for the skin colour analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this work, it is proposed a technique to implement an intensity sensor based on the generation of a double-reflecting (ghost) signal in optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR). The intensity sensor is supported by a singlemode-multimode-singlemode (SMS) fiber structure combined with a fiber loop mirror (FLM). The results of the displacement sensitivity show linear behavior for both the first-reflecting and double-reflecting signals with linear slopes of approximately −4.5 dB/mm and −6 dB/mm, respectively. The displacement resolution achieved is ∼0.28 mm. It is also found that the system is able to read periodic displacement variations in the millisecond time scale applied to the sensing head. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:1312-1315, 2015 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this article, it is proposed an interrogation and multiplexing system based on optical time domain reflectometer for fiber loop mirror coupled intensity sensors. Pulse width of approximately 100 ns enabled to attain a dynamic range of approximately 18 dB. Good linearity was achieved with a −13.3 dB/mm slope. The resolution of the sensing head was 0.027 mm. The proposed interrogation system showed to be an alternative technique for multiplexing and remote sensing. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2860-2864, 2014 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background In the past decades, many instruments have been developed to measure skin elasticity and firmness. The offer is extensive and is constantly increasing, becoming difficult to decide which equipment and mechanical property measurement are better to portrait the desired characteristics. The aim of this study was to compare and correlate parameters assessed with different probes, based on different methodologies, to understand which probe characterizes each skin elasticity property. Methods Measurements were performed in the abdomen region of 34 female volunteers, with three different probes: Cutometer® SEM575, Reviscometer® RVM600 and Frictiometer® FR700. Statistical data analysis was performed by Factor Analysis on IBM SPSS Statistics 17.0. Results Frictiometer® and Reviscometer® measurements showed significant correlations with Cutometer's Uf, Ua, Ur and Ue parameters. Ue was strongly and significantly correlated to Uf and Ur. Ua was strongly and significantly correlated with Ur, Uf and Ue. Reviscometer® measurements were similar along the same axis, and measurements performed in a specific direction are significantly correlated with age. Conclusion A simpler and faster methodology for the complete assessment of elasticity and firmness of human skin is possible, in alternative to elaborate and time consuming methods, involving several equipments and parameters. The simpler methodology does not reduce the information obtained about the skin properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a vitro and in vivo study of cosmetic ingredients Coffee silverskin and hyaluronic acid (HA). Topics discussed include hyaluronic acid used as a potent anti-wrinkle compound, HyaCare Filler CL as an anti-ageing ingredient made from fermentation-derived HA and a data from the International Coffee Organization (ICO) on the world coffee production in 2014. It mentions of Coffea arabica seed oil observed to improve collagen and elastin production.